| Championship |
140 |
| Maroon |
132 |
| Teal |
132 |
| Orange |
121 |
| Green |
112 |
| Ocean |
112 |
| Khaki |
97 |
| D. Muirhead |
97 |
Par
(Mens/Ladies) |
3/3 |
Handicap
(Mens/Ladies) |
18/16
|
|
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So long as it fits into the landforms I try to make the 17th a par 3. This happens on most of my courses. Such a hole provides a provisional rest before the 18th which usually epitomizes the course. I try to make it short, still, spacious and heart stopping, I hope this number 17 fits the bill.
There was a problem since I didn't want two par 3's with island or peninsula greens. Circling the lake one day, I could hear the pained words and grim but passionate fury of the participants: "What's the nutcase, loony psychopath of an architect think he's up to with his cretinous sadism?" Being human, these spectral words hurts me, so I quickly decided this one would have a connecting dry land section to the green.
When I was doing the first course at Ironwood in Palm Springs, with Arnold Palmer as my advisor, I tried to do a similar hole, but Arnold correctly felt for the kind of golfer for whom we were designing, that all the greens should be on shore. I was not smart enough in those days to suggest a dry land extension to help golfers avoid seasickness. This time, however, we can have our cake and eat it too. So it's sea or shore, take your pick.
When the pin is on the island part of the green, perhaps you can look at it in ballet terms. Number 8 would compare to a vertical jump or entrechat, whereas theis hole would spread eagle as a grand jete. A great leap as they say in English, a combination of Pine Valley and the Bolshoi, and here's the reason why.
If the rattlesnake is an isomorphic symbol of fear, and it certainly is to most people, nothing has captured the public imagination, with more ferocity than the idea behind the movie "Jaws." Shark attack is Neolithic, primitive, ferocious, cruel, evil, violent, brutal, wild, savage, demonic and all the other adjectives, and so is this hole with its gaping mouth awaiting your pitiful sphere, or offering death by drowning if you miss. What an alternative. You can of course go for the shore from whence you can try a delicate pitch and a long putt; or the pin can be set on shore. And there is always an alternate route, and heaven praise my Irish friends Mary Gavin and Old Joe Plunkett for building down my ego and making me consider my fellow man.
Like William Dinesen in "Out of Africa," I believe this hole will bring the golfer face-to-face with himself, and with a lover-enemy worthy of respect- in Dinesen's case it was a lion hunt which was an "affair of perfect harmony, of deep burning, mutal desire and reverence between two thoughtful creatures on the same wave length." A shark hunt would have to be far more primitive and less intellectually balanced, but quite probably even more thrillng and fulfilling. This, at least, is my intention on number 17.
I want it to give the golfer an intense moment of visual and physical experience and as on number 8, form a platform high enough to see it all, including the view of number 18 as a beckoning panorama in the distance.
Desmond Muirhead |